“If you don’t put away that trash, Caroline, and go upstairs and practise, I’ll make you go! Strewing the table in that manner! Look what a pickle the room is in!”
The words came from Lady Augusta Yorke, a tall, dark woman, with high
cheek-bones; and they were spoken at a height that might not have been
deemed orthodox at court. Miss Caroline Yorke, a young demoiselle, with
a “net” that was more frequently off her head than on it, slip-shod
shoes, and untidy stockings, had placed a quantity of mulberry leaves on
the centre table, and a silkworm on each leaf. She leisurely proceeded
with her work, bringing forth more silkworms from her paper trays,
paying not the least attention to her mother. Lady Augusta advanced, and
treated her to a slight tap on the ear, her favourite mode of correcting
her children.
“Now, mamma! What’s that for?”
“Do you hear me, you disobedient child? I will have this rubbish put
away, I say. Goodness, Martha! don’t bring any one in here!” broke off
Lady Augusta, as a maid appeared, showing in a visitor. “Oh, it is you,
William! I don’t mind you. Come in.”
It was the Reverend William Yorke who entered. He was not altogether a
favourite of Lady Augusta’s. Though only distantly related to her late
husband, he yet bore the name of Yorke; and when he came to Helstonleigh
(for he was not a native of the place), and became a candidate for a
vacant minor canonry, Lady Augusta’s pride had taken fire. The minor
canons were looked upon by the exclusives of the cathedral as holding
a very inferior position amidst the clergy, and she resented that one
belonging to her should descend to set up his place amongst them.
Mr. Yorke shook hands with Lady Augusta, and then turned to look at the
leaves and silkworms. “Are you doing that for ornament, Caroline?”
“Ornament!” wrathfully cried Lady Augusta. “She is doing it to waste
time, and to provoke me.”
“No, I am not, mamma,” denied Miss Caroline. “My poor silkworms never
have anything but lettuce leaves. Tod brought these for me from the
bishop’s garden, and I am looking at the silkworms enjoying the change.”
“Tod is in hot water,” remarked Mr. Yorke. “He was fighting with another
boy as I came through the cloisters.”
“Then he’ll come home with his clothes torn, as he did the last time he
fought!” exclaimed Lady Augusta, in consternation. “I think no one ever
had such a set of children as mine!” she peevishly continued. “The boys
boisterous as so many wild animals, and the girls enough to drive one
crazy, with their idle, disobedient ways. Look at this room, William!
encumbered from one end to the other! things thrown out of hand by
Caroline and Fanny! As to lessons, they never open one. For three days
I have never ceased telling Caroline to go and practise, and she has
not attempted to obey me! I shall go out of my mind with one thing or
another; I know I shall! Nice dunces they’ll grow up.”
“Go and practise now, Caroline,” said Mr. Yorke. “I will put your
silkworms up for you.”
Caroline pouted. “I hate practising.”
He laid his hand gently upon her, gazing at her with his dark, pleasant
eyes, reproachful now; “But you do not hate obeying your mamma? You must
never let it come to that, Caroline.”
She suffered him to lead her to the door, went docilely enough to
the drawing-room, and sat down to the piano. Oh, for a little better
training for those children! Mr. Yorke began placing the silkworms in
the trays, and Lady Augusta went on grumbling.
“It is a dreadful fate--to be left a widow with a heap of unruly
children who will not be controlled! I must find a governess for the
girls, and then I shall be free from them for a few hours in the day.
I thought I would try and save the money, and teach them myself; but I
might just as well attempt to teach so many little wild Indians! I am
not fitted for teaching; it is beyond me. Don’t you think you could hear
of a governess, William? You go about so much.”
“I have heard of one since I saw you yesterday,” he replied. “A young
lady, whom you know, is anxious to take a situation, and I think she
might suit you.”
“Whom I know?” cried Lady Augusta. “Who is it?”
“Miss Channing.”
Lady Augusta looked up in astonishment. “Is _she_ going out as
governess? That comes of losing this lawsuit. She has lost no time in
the decision.”
“When an unpalatable step has to be taken, the sooner it is set about,
the less will be the cost,” remarked Mr. Yorke.
“Unpalatable! you may well say that. This will be the climax, will it
not, William?”
“Climax of what?”
“Of all the unpleasantness that has attended your engagement with Miss
Channing--”
“I beg your pardon, Lady Augusta,” was the interruption of Mr. Yorke.
“No unpleasantness whatever has attended my engagement with Miss
Channing.”
“I think so, for I consider her beneath you; and, therefore, that it
is nothing but unpleasant from beginning to end. The Channings are very
well in their way, but they are not equal to the Yorkes. You might make
this a pretext for giving her up.”
Mr. Yorke laughed. “I think her all the more worthy of me. The only
question that is apt to arise within me is, whether I am worthy of her.
As we shall never agree upon this point, Lady Augusta, it may not be
worth while to discuss it. About the other thing? I believe she would
make an admirable governess for Caroline and Fanny, if you could obtain
her.”
“Oh, I dare say she would do _that_. She is a lady, and has been well
educated. Would she want a large salary?”
“Forty guineas a year, to begin with.”
Lady Augusta interrupted him with a scream. “I never could give half
of it! I am sure I never could. What with housekeeping expenses, and
milliners’ bills, and visiting, and the boys everlastingly dragging
money out of me, I have scarcely anything to spare for education.”
“Yet it is more essential than all the rest. Your income, properly
apportioned, would afford--”
Another scream from Lady Augusta. Her son Theodore--Tod,
familiarly--burst into the room, jacketless, his hair entangled, blood
upon his face, and his shirt-sleeves in shreds.
“You rebellious, wicked fright of a boy!” was the salutation of my lady,
when she could recover breath.
“Oh, it’s nothing, mamma. Don’t bother,” replied Master Tod, waving her
off. “I have been going into Pierce, senior, and have polished him off
with a jolly good licking. He won’t get me into a row again, I’ll bet.”
“What row did he get you into?”
“He’s a nasty, sneaking tattler, and he took and told something to
Gaunt, and Gaunt put me up for punishment, and I had a caning from old
Pye. I vowed I’d pay Pierce out for it, and I have done it, though he is
a sight bigger than me.”
“What was it about?” inquired Mr. Yorke. “The damaged surplice?”
“Damaged surplice be hanged!” politely retorted the young gentleman,
who, in gaining the victory, appeared to have lost his temper. “It was
something concerning our lessons at the third desk, if you must know.”
“You might be civil, Tod,” said Lady Augusta. “Look at your shirt! Who,
do you suppose, is going to mend that?”
“It can go unmended,” responded Master Tod. “I wish it was the fashion
to go without clothes! They are always getting torn.”
“I wish it was!” heartily responded my lady.
That same evening, in returning to her house from a visit, Constance
Channing encountered Mr. Yorke. He turned to walk with her to the door.
“I intended to call this afternoon, Constance, but was prevented from
doing so,” he observed. “I have spoken to Lady Augusta.”
“Well?” she answered with a smile and a blush.
“She would be very glad of _you_; but the difficulty, at first, appeared
to be about salary. However, I pointed out a few home truths, and she
admitted that if the girls were to be educated, she supposed she must
pay for it. She will give you forty guineas a year; but you are to call
upon her and settle other details. To-morrow, if it should be convenient
to you.”
Constance clasped her hands. “I am so pleased!” she exclaimed, in a low
tone.
“So am I,” said Mr. Yorke. “I would rather you went to Lady Augusta’s
than to a stranger’s. And do, Constance, try and make those poor girls
more what they ought to be.”
“That I shall try, you may be sure, William. Are you not coming in?”
“No,” said Mr. Yorke, who had held out his hand on reaching the door. He
was pretty constant in his evening visits to the Channings, but he had
made an engagement for this one with a brother clergyman.
Constance entered. She looked in the study for her brothers, but
only Arthur was there. He was leaning his elbow upon the table in a
thoughtful mood.
“Where are they all?” inquired Constance.
“Tom and Charles have gone to the cricket match. I don’t think Hamish
has come in.”
“Why did you not go to cricket also?”
“I don’t know,” said Arthur. “I did not feel much inclination for
cricket this evening.”
“You looked depressed, Arthur, but I have some good news for you,”
Constance said, bending over him with a bright smile. “It is settled
about my going out, and I am to have forty guineas a year. Guess where
it is to?”
Arthur threw his arm round Constance, and they stood together, looking
at the trailing honeysuckle just outside the window. “Tell me, darling.”
“It is to Lady Augusta’s. William has been talking to her, and she would
like to have me. Does it not seem lucky to find it so soon?”
“_Lucky_, Constance?”
“Ah, well! you know what I think, Arthur, though I did say ‘lucky,’”
returned Constance. “I know it is God who is helping us.”
Very beautiful, very touching, was the simple trustfulness reposed in
God, by Constance and Arthur Channing. The good seed had been sown on
good ground, and was bringing forth its fruit.
“I was deep in a reverie when you interrupted me, Constance,” Arthur
resumed. “Something seems to whisper to me that this loss, which we
regard as a great misfortune, may turn out for good in the end.”
“In the end! It may have come for our good now,” said Constance.
“Perhaps I wanted my pride lowered,” she laughed; “and this has come to
do it, and is despatching me out, a meek governess.”
“Perhaps we all wanted it,” cried Arthur, meaningly. “There are other
bad habits it may stop, besides pride.” He was thinking of Hamish and
his propensity for spending. “Forty guineas you are to have?”
“Yes,” said Constance. “Arthur, do you know a scheme that I have in my
head? I have been thinking of it all day.”
“What is it? Stay! here is some one coming in. It is Hamish.”
Hamish entered with the account-books under his arm, preparatory to
going over them with his father. Constance drew him to her.
“Hamish, I have a plan in my head, if we can only carry it out. I am
going to tell it you.”
“One that will set the river on fire?” cried gay, laughing Hamish.
“If we--you and I, and Arthur--can only manage to earn enough money, and
if we can observe strict economy at home, who knows but we may send papa
to the German baths yet?”
A cloud came over Hamish’s face, and his smile faded. “I don’t see how
_that_ is to be done.”
“But you have not heard of my good luck. I am going to Lady Augusta’s,
and am to have forty guineas a year. Now, if you and Arthur will help,
it may be easy. Oh, Hamish, it would be worth any effort--any struggle.
Think how it would be rewarded. Papa restored to health! to freedom from
pain!”
A look of positive pain seated itself on Hamish’s brow. “Yes,” he
sighed, “I wish it could be done.”
“But you do not speak hopefully.”
“Because, if I must tell you the truth, I do not feel hopefully. I fear
we could not do it: at least until things are brighter.”
“If we do our very best, we might receive great help, Hamish.”
“What help?” he asked.
“God’s help,” she whispered.
Hamish smiled. He had not yet learnt what Constance had. Besides, Hamish
was just then in a little trouble on his own account: he knew very well
that _his_ funds were wanted in another quarter.
“Constance, dear, do not look at me so wistfully. I will try with all my
might and main, to help my father; but I fear I cannot do anything yet.
I mean to draw in my expenses,” he went on, laughing: “to live like any
old screw of a miser, and never squander a halfpenny where a farthing
will suffice.”
He took his books and went in to Mr. Channing. Constance began training
the honeysuckle, her mind busy, and a verse of Holy Writ running through
it--“Commit thy way unto the Lord, and put thy trust in Him, and He
shall bring it to pass.”
“Ay!” she murmured, glancing upwards at the blue evening sky: “our
whole, whole trust in patient reliance; and whatsoever is best for us
will be ours.”
Annabel stole up to Constance, and entwined her arms caressingly round
her. Constance turned, and parted the child’s hair upon her forehead
with a gentle hand.
“Am I to find a little rebel in you, Annabel? Will you not try and make
things smooth for me?”
“Oh, Constance, dear!” was the whispered answer: “it was only my
fun last night, when I said you should not take me for lessons in an
evening. I will study all day by myself, and get my lessons quite ready
for you, so as to give you no trouble in the evening. Would you like to
hear me my music now?”
Constance bent to kiss her. “No, dear child; there is no necessity for
my taking you in an evening, until my days shall be occupied at Lady
Augusta Yorke’s.”